Proceeds from the Fourth Annual Benefit Gala will support the United Nations Foundation. Within its Children’s Health/Women and Population programs, the United Nations Foundation has invested approximately $45 million to help the United Nations address the HIV/AIDS global challenge. The United Nations Foundation places emphasis on supporting United Nations programs designed to curb the spread of the pandemic, with a focus on lowering the risk of adolescent girls. In particular, the United Nations Foundation promotes prevention, education, and life skills development programs, empowering adolescent girls to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS.

Special Guest
Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of all time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country, and the respect of the world.

Born in 1918 to South African royalty and educated at the finest institutions available to Blacks, Mr. Mandela could have enjoyed a life of relative comfort even within the limitations of Apartheid. Instead, he chose a life of sacrifice and struggle, a choice that would first see him imprisoned for treason for 27 years. There he became a potent symbol of resistance, and later emerged as a living symbol of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

The world stood in awe at Mandela’s resilience, his humility, and his lack of bitterness or hatred. The man known years earlier as an impetuous, hotheaded radical had transformed himself into a mature, intelligent, and charming statesman.

In 1993, for his work for the peaceful termination of Apartheid and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa, he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of all South Africans who had sacrificed to bring peace and freedom to their country. In 1994, as South Africa’s first majority-rule president, he helped his country achieve reconciliation and recognition of the interdependence of the human condition, and established a multiracial democracy that barred discrimination against minorities.

Retiring in 1999, Mr. Mandela has continued to play a larger than life role on the world stage. The force of his moral authority has enabled him to successfully resolve numerous previously intractable international disputes.

Despite all the demands associated with his fame, Mr. Mandela continues to fight against poverty, illiteracy, and disease, and for human rights in South Africa and around the globe.

He founded and has devoted much of his time and attention to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, set up in 1994, and the Nelson Mandela Foundation. The latter was established in 1999 to expand and formalize the work he has done throughout his life for democracy, education, and health care, offering not only aid and assistance, but the inspiration of dignity and hope over despair and hatred, and of self-discipline and love over persecution and evil.

Artistic Presentation
Miriam Makeba and Zade Dirani

Miriam Makeba is a legendary musical sensation, a celebrated international performer and decorated humanitarian who was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1932. She began her career as a vocalist for the Manhattan Brothers in the U.S. in the 1950s and was a star by the end of the decade. Passed with a powerful and distinctive voice Time Magazine said “she sings with the smoky tones and delicate phrasing of Ella Fitzgerald, and when the occasion demands, she summons up the brassy showmanship of Ethel Merman and the intimate warmth of Frank Sinatra.”

In 1960 she was banned from South Africa for her opposition to Apartheid. Spending the next 30 years as a citizen of the world, she lived and worked in the U.S. and then Guinea, where she served as an Ambassador to the United Nations. A political activist for justice, she continues to speak out for women, against drugs, and supporting education. In 1995 she founded the Makeba Centre for Girls in Johannesburg. In recognition of her humanitarianism, she was awarded the Dag Hammerskjold Peace Prize in 1986.

In recognition of her musical talents, she was awarded the Grammy for her joint album An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba in 1959 — the first for an African recording artist. She was the first African with a Top Ten hit, Pata Pata, in 1967. Known as Mama Africa to millions, she is one of the Three Divas, with Odetta and Nina Simone. Now a great grandmother, she shows no signs of slowing down and is now on a U.S. tour.

Zade Dirani, born in Jordan in 1980, is a composer and pianist whose compositions gracefully blend the traditions of the Middle East and Western classicism, and it is his wish to play a significant role in the facilitation of communication and understanding between these cultures. He played his first concert at age 17 in Amman and his first album is being released this spring. Dirani studied at the Berkeley College of Music and is currently living in Los Angeles.

This talented young artist has been honored frequently in Jordan, including with the prestigious Award for the Arts by his government’s Ministry of Education, and was recently appointed by King Abdullah Al-Hussein II to serve as one of six achievers on the Think Big campaign to promote foreign investment in Jordan.